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Hat Films
Hat Films is the name of the gaming and film related venture, created by close friends Ross Hornby, Chris Trott and Alex Smith. The trio started their popular YouTube series "Hatventures" by posting videos of their gaming misadventures on Minecraft, but have since moved on to other video games, such as Trials Evolution, Shoot Many Robots, and Left 4 Dead 2. Although the majority of the videos are related to gaming, Hat Films has also produced a variety of live action shorts and also create most of the music for their series. History Hat Films was created, originally under the name "Haat Films", by Ross Hornby and Chris Trott with some schoolmates when the two were in university together. Ross and Trott filmed a couple of live action shorts for both their university course and in their spare time. The live action skits include the more well known video "Dr. Jesus Trott - The Revenge Trailer". Later, Alex Smith joined the creative team and the three began recording the 'Let's Play' videos after they became addicted to Minecraft, dropping the second "a" in their name and becoming "Hat Films". The first ever series created by the trio was Forsaken Lands. Hat Films became even more popular with the creation of their second Minecraft 'Let's Play' series of Skylands. This new series introduced the death count system and later the inclusion of three different perspectives. During this period, Hat Films caught the eye of Minecraft publisher Mojang and soon the trio found themselves making trailers for the very company whose product helped them rise in popularity to begin with. Since their growing success, Hat Films has released much more content that is not Minecraft related. Their most recent Hatventures series was An Epic Hatventure, but a much bigger Hatventures project is being worked on behind the scenes. The trio have released information and teasers of a purely cinematic series made in Minecraft. They have said that the project, titled Origins, is bigger than anything they've ever done and want to get it done right. Quality has always been top priority for Hat Films. Auditions for voice actors, set designers and artists in general have been put out and a steady stream of applicants have sent in their work. Because of the physical distance and the fact that Smith had a full time job, the trio were working at a fraction of their capability which affected the progress of Origins and the rest of their content; however as of the beginning of November the guys moved in together in a house in Bristol. The release of a 2 minute tour video kicked off the start their adventures in the new headquarters of Hat Films, although it was hard to distinguish any notable features of the house due to the level of screaming done by the guys. Joining the Yogscast Hat Films first worked with the Yogscast on the Minecon 2011 Trailer that featured Lewis (a.k.a. Xephos) escorting Steve inside Mandalay Bay and Simon (a.k.a. Honeydew) attempting to break into the convention alongside alsmiffy. The two groups became friends and even closer when the trio moved to Bristol. They were invited onto the 2012 holiday charity livestream as special guests and the connection continued to grow. Several collaborations later, including Minecraft PvPs and a burger eating challenge with Sam Strippin against Smith, it was officially announced on August 23rd, 2013 at Minecraft Expo UK 2013 that Hat Films was indeed joining the Yogscast. They later confirmed it on their twitter page. The merge comes with some changes but the sirs have assured their fans that no major changes would be done to the channel. A tweet from Hat films just after the announcement briefly sums up the arrangement: "More collabs, no name change and no content change #sameoldhatfilms". So far this has been true with the sirs guest appearing in videos like Race for the Wool, Skyblock Rumble and The Walls 3 Aztec as well as the continuation of their core content. Format While most 'Let's Plays' of video games are recorded from one perspective, the members of Hat Films record 1-3 different perspectives and use their knowledge of editing to create a multi-cam system where the more interesting points of an episode are showcased. However, in certain shows and episodes, such as skylands ep. 18-22, there is only one perspective. The decision is based on the discretion of the Hat trio. At other times another camera is put in to add a certain cinematic quality to the episodes. Other editing techniques are added as well like death count graphics and other comedic cinematic elements as well their own music for certain episodes. Censorship An issue arose during some of their later videos about censorship. For their previous videos, Hat Films had censored their use of strong language for a comedic effect. Some found this odd as a lot of the banter between the three was directed for more of a mature audience. In the 27th episode of their online podcast Hat Chat, they addressed the issue of swearing and censorship saying that the funniness faded and grew to take up more time editing than was necessary. On a personal level, the censorship affected how they spoke with Trott stating: "we became complacent with our swearing. It actually affected the way we talked." This being said, they did not say that bleeps would be taken out all together, but would merely be dialed down. Category:Hat Films Wiki port